Fundraising campaigns for schools, athletic teams, and clubs is changing.  The desire to do the right thing for the environment has crept into all aspects of parenting and education with our kids…why not fundraising?!  Tracy Green of Green Hands Fundraising has found a great way to generate money for schools, while supplying parents and children an avenue to eliminate waste from school box lunches.  Her vision is to create litterless lunches by supplying stainless steel bottles and laptop lunches.  

Tracy Green started this green fundraising company when she recognized the lack of environmentally conscious and socially responsible products available to schools and organizations wanting to fundraise. In the midst of the BPA controversy, she decided to run a fundraiser with Klean Kanteen bottles to try and eliminate all of the plastic water bottles children were drinking from. In the hope of raising a few hundred dollars, the success of this fundraiser went off the charts!  Selling a product that parents need, while helping our environment seemed to be the perfect fit.  Also, have you attempted to source stainless steel bottles lately?  The prices are very expensive and they are hard to find.  With Green Hands, the sourcing of bottles has already been done, the prices are fair or even below retail cost, and money goes back into your school for finding a product you need!  How awesome is that?

Not only does Tracy run the fundraiser hand-in-hand with the PAC or teachers, she will educate regarding BPA and healthy alternatives. She is branching out to Eco Bags and has lots of cutting edge, cool ideas for fundraising products.  She is one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve spoken to locally about environmental issues, and has been successful since starting up just before the school year wrapped up last year. So if you are looking for fundraising alternatives to selling Entertainment books or wrapping paper, you can contact Tracy in the Fall when school starts back. This awesome company, based from the common sense approach of giving parents products they actually need, is very successful with generating dollars to help schools and athletic teams.  Klean Kanteen, Bilt Bottles, Laptop Lunch Kits, Eco bags, and Eco cleaning supplies are all on her list of fundraising possibilities.  Visit the site Green Hands Fundraising for more information or to contact Tracy with questions.

We all know the importance of using a canvas tote or re-usable bags to try and eliminate plastic waste, but you can go one step further at the grocery store. Has it crossed your mind that there might be a better way to bag your apples or potatoes, rather than putting them in plastic produce bags? You know the bags you rip off the roll and can’t figure out which side is supposed to open? <grin> It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion that there must be a better solution.

Today I received a great solution called Eco-Bags®. This company sells perfect little sacks for bagging your produce or grains. They are very light-weight and come in natural or organic cotton…most important, they are machine washable. These can be used in place of plastic produce bags. 

Amazing that Eco-Bags® was so ahead of their time when they opened for business in 1989. They were very forward thinking as the company’s goal was to produce a product so that “reusable becomes a way of life.” Also, they first launched using natural cotton, then evolved to certified organic cotton, and have now progressed to reclaimed cotton (recycled scraps).

Just to give you an idea of what colossal waste plastic bags produce for our planet -  here are the savings from San Francisco that has banned plastic bags. They estimate that 180 million bags were used per year by shoppers. The owner of Eco-Bags® projects that 90 billion plastic bags are distributed per year in the US and that paper bags are also a huge waste in the amount of energy it takes to produce them. Reusing items is probably the most profound message from Environmentalists. There seems to be no easier place to start than with plastic bags and there is an educational component with taking one of these shopping with you.  You can bet people will stop and ask questions and an Eco conversation will be born! These bags are priced great too…check here for produce bag prices. 

Picture source: Eco-Bags® site

Well, I didn’t know when writing my previous article on safe sunscreen for children, that it would be this difficult to actually get my hands on the brands that came highly recommended by EWG (Environmental Working Group).  It has been a challenge to source these, but I have some tips and hope it saves you research time. 

Badger sunscreen SPF 30 if very difficult to find in stores.  Whole Foods and Planet Organic would love to carry it but are having a tough time sourcing it.  My friend Leah (thank you Leah!) sent me the link to Victoria’s Health that sells Badger online, BUT after you pay for the sunscreen and shipping you are looking at $30 per bottle (82 g).  I will need about 5 bottles to last my kids this summer, so it’s just not a practical solution for me.  Still, I’m not deterred….I figure this can’t be hard.  Hmmmm keep reading.
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Where do you start with t-shirts from BioME 5!? There are so many good things about these t-shirts, I’m not sure where to begin. I guess first you can start with the company name because once you learn about the company’s vision, you’ll see the reflection in the clothes. Two architectural designers created the BioME 5 Animal Alphabet Project. The concept was creating a kids t-shirt to become a learning tool, combined with amazing animal images to foster an appreciation for nature’s beauty.

The name BioME 5 was inspired from the Earth’s natural biomes: desert, grasslands, aquatics, forests, and tundra. All of the animals featured on the tees exist in one of these environments. Now, back to the fact these tees were developed by architectural designers,
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While researching my article for children’s sunscreen, I came across a 1-page guide that all parents should print and carry in their shopping bag/purse. It’s from the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetic database and it is something all parents should read. It lists ingredients to avoid within children’s personal care products and lists better brands (picks) for each of these categories:

Shampoo and Conditioner
Body Wash and Liquid Soap
Toothpaste
Sunscreen
Baby Wipes
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